The Graveyard
by LittlePlagueSpirit
Summary: Ikuto's father is gone and Ikuto, sick of the sadness at home, runs away and ends up at a graveyard. There, he meets a strange girl with a mysterious name. What is her connection with the abandoned graveyard, and she is really as she says...an angel?
1. Chapter 1

******NOTE: THIS STORY ISN'T BASED ON TWILIGHT AND WILL BE NOTHING LIKE THAT! VAMPIRES WON'T APPEAR IN HERE!**

**Hello people, did you all miss me?^^ To old readers I saw: Hello and good to see you back! To new readers: Welcome to my new story! I have been walking around with the idea for this story, and now I'm finished with writing the first chapter, I thought it was time to place it. Maybe not everything will be clear after reading the first chapter, but that will be explained...eventually;). Now, without further undo, sit back and let's us hear the beginning of a new story...Enjoy.**

**Ages:**

**Ikuto - 8 **

**Utau - 6  
**

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_**~It's always darkest just before dawn. - English Proverb.~**_

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Chapter 1: The Appearance

It was snowing outside. White, light ice crystals fell down from the sky, creating a world where everything was pure and clean. Where there were no mistakes, no problems, no bad things. Only pure and soft snow.

Would anyone who would see the snow, realize that it was all fake? That snow was just an illusion? That it was just frozen water, turned into ice because of the temperature in the sky? That, when it would melt, would turn that whole pure and innocent world into a mess, leaving only muddy puddles on the street?

As I stood before my window, watching the world covering himself in a fake white clock, I tried as hard as I could to block that one horrible thought out of my mind. That one painful thought, that was screaming in my head and cut his meaning in my heart. That one thought, that I couldn't put out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried to do so. Because, snow can maybe cover up our fake and cruel world, it can't cover up the truth, how painful it may be.

**Dad is gone.**

I don't know where he is, or why he has left us. All the other people were telling me was: "Ikuto, your father has left you."

I was in my room. Doors locked, no entry allowed for anyone. I had enough of all the other person downstairs. I didn't want to feel Utau's arms around me, feeling her tears fall on my shirt. I didn't want to hear people say "oh those poor children. All alone now in this world..." I just wanted to sit alone in my room, far away from all the noise. I wanted to look out of the window, with my head against the glass, the coldness soothing the pain inside my head. As I watched the window glass steam up by my breath, I closed my eyes and tried desperately to calm the thoughts in my head.

_How did this happen...?_

I know is that I came home today. There were a whole lot of people in our house, arguing, discussing and crying over things I didn't understood. I just stood in the door opening, wondering what was going on. When I came in Utau immediately run towards me and throw her into my arms. I wasn't really surprised by that because she clings to me all the time, but her eyes were red and new tears were forming in her eyes.

"Utua, what's wrong? What are all those people doing here?" I asked worried. I had never seen her so upset before.

"I-i-ikuto! They say that-that..."

I pulled away and shook her lightly. "What did they say Utau?" Emotions were bubbling inside my because of Utua's behavior. Where was she so worked up about that she acted this way?

She looked up at me, her violet eyes shimmering with fresh tears. "They said that daddy has left us!"

"_**Daddy has left us!"**_

Utua's voice echoed trough my head endlessly, like a yo-yo that always comes up because of the force you used when you pushed it away. It stayed in my head, then leaving it and returning again with much more speed and pain than before. I clenched my fists and stared at the floor, trying to stop the tears from coming out.

_He can't be gone, _I said to myself. _Dad would never leave us. He loves mom, I'm sure of it. He always plays with Utau and never minds her irritating whining. He always listens to what I tell, no matter what it is. When we ask it, he plays the violin without complaining about us constantly asking for it. He didn't hate us, he loved us!_

_**But why is he gone then?**_

My anger came out and I smashed my fist against the window. The force of my punch was returned by the icy glass. I fell to the ground clutching my throbbing hand, letting tears escape which I blamed to the pain in my hand. _But why?! _I thought desperately. _Why would dad do something so cruel! Why would he leave mom and Utau and me behind? Did we do something wrong? Did we made him angry in some way, so angry that he never wanted to see us again? That he just walked away from home and...left us? Really left us?_

"Tsukiyomi-san?" Somebody knocked on my door. "Please Tsukiyomi-san, we understand that you feel sad because of your father's lose, but can you please come out of your room? Some people here want to speak to you about-"

I stood up and turned my back to the door. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody, nor see anyone. I had enough of all the pitiful looks, the endless arguments and the tears on Utau her face. I was out of here.

I grabbed my dad's violin cage that lay on my bed (I took it into my room because I wanted nobody to take it: dad's violin was now mine and only mine to keep). The window creaking opened when I pulled the latch on it. In no time I was out of my room and away from my house, the violin case on my back and walking to god-knows-where.

As the snow continued to fall I walked trough a changing world, searching for nothing, letting my thoughts ponder in my head, screaming, whispering, turning into tantrums or pleads. I didn't even try to pay attention to them, only on the ground beneath my feet and hoping that they would bring my to some place without pain and tears.

After some time I hit my foot against something hard. A hollow sound echoed through the area, as a sign that I left the districted city behind me and was somewhere outside the city. I looked up and stared at the picture for me.

A huge piece of gray earth (which slowly turned white) stretched out before me. Old, bare trees were scattered in the horizon in an attempt to not make it look completely empty. And everywhere, as far as I could see, were gravestones. Some were old and their straight shapes were worn, some looked as if they were just placed. The whole place was (as far as I could see) surrounded by a high iron fence. Between the graves lay a gravel path, making clear that people actually _could_ enter this graveyard.

Far away, in the middle of hundred different shaped gravestones, stood an old and torn down church. The stained glass windows were dusty and some of them were broken. Big wooden doors made sure nobody would enter the holey building. The church had been white in the earlier days, but as the time went by the white color had faded and had changed into a faint gray tint, like it wanted to fit with the scenery.

The silence, the graves, the broken down church, the gray color dominating the whole place...The sarcasm was just too much. This all couldn't be real. Someone must have heard my thoughts in some pain and decided to take pleasure in my pain, so he brought me here.

Minutes passed. The cold winter wind made a howling sound. The gravestones kept standing, kept waiting, kept pleading for someone, anyone, to enter the graveyard and walk along all those silent memories of persons who died long or short ago. Where did those corps plead for anyway? Why do they try to get people to visit them, if it isn't obvious that everybody has long forgotten them? And why do I find myself standing before the rusty fence, pushing against the clasping gate? Why do I find myself walking on the gravel stones, looking to those stone blocks, studying their form and age?

What is this place doing to me...?

It was surprisingly to see how many different graves there were. You had the normal crosses, some of them crooked, standing in the ground like they grew out of it like flowers. There were the gravestones, most of them a dull grey color, surrounded by weeds, destroying the massive blocks of stone from the inside with their long branches. The wind surly had helped with that work, given the worn edges of the stones.

And then there were the statues. That was the thing that scared me the most. I thought having an statue on your grave instead of a stone was something out of the eighteenth century (but looking to the state of this graveyard, who knows how long this place existed?), for rich nobles who wanted to impression others even with their death. But the most scariest thing of the statues, was what they all represented.

Angels.

It was clear that it were angels and not human statues. Even thought none wore haloes, all of them had wings, spread out wide as if they were going to fly away any minute. Only their feet of stone, chiseled down in their bases, indicated that these creatures already stood here for a long time.

The angels also weren't unaffected by the test of time. Some of them were lying on the ground in pieces, their strong figures broken and their faces smashed, scattered like the pebbles on the path. Other still stood on their pedestals but missed body parts. Arms, legs, hands, feet, wings, you name it. But even if they missed some parts, they didn't lose their aura. Standing straight and proud, their arms stretched out to the earth or to heaven. Looking forward to the horizon to see any approaching visitors, sadly looking down to the grave, eyes cast upwards towards the sky. They gave the graveyard an atmosphere that you could only call: _majestic._

Me standing here surrounded by all those graves. All those last signs of people wanting to leave a last message to the world. To let others know that they had lived on this planted, had breathed, laughed, cried, just like any normal person would do. They all tried with their last wish, their last sign on this earth: their grave symbol, to let the world know that they had lived and if they please were not going to be forgotten. But look at this place…

So forgotten. So empty. Nobody seems to remember all those people lying here. Nobody has taking care of the graves in all those years. Nobody cares about all the hundreds, no, maybe thousand persons waiting for somebody to look after them, to visit their graves sometime and to let them please not be forgotten. All those corps here with their last hopes and dreams: buried in the cold earth, far away from the real world and the living so that people's perfect lives wouldn't be haunted with wishes from the dead.

I fought my upcoming tears. Realizing all this suddenly made me think of my father. Would he be walking around on this moment, regretting the decision he made? Had he also had a last wish, some last words that he wanted to say to us before he left for God-knows-what reason? Was he thinking of us right know, about mom, about Utau? _About me?_

The cold crept into my bones as I kneeled down on the snowy ground, opening the violin case and taking out the only left memory of my dad. He was gone and alone, and because of that mom and Utau and I were alone, and all those people here had been alone for maybe hundreds of years, and we were all alone and sad and nobody would ever be there to care about that and…

My body moved without thinking: placing the violin under my chin and my hand grabbed the bow. Slowly I began playing, the melody of my father's violin filled the grey sky, coming over the graveyard. With my song, I tried to let the corpses know that there was somebody who knew how they felt, because he lost somebody important to him too and he may never see him again...

"What do you think you're doing?!"

I almost dropped the violin from my hands and my heart began beating like crazy. Had a corps came out of his grave? Was there a zombie standing behind me, wanting to finish me off?! Preparing for the worst, I slowly turned around.

In front of me stood a little girl. Her pink hair was in a ponytail and she wore a long black dress that was too long for her, because the sleeves were hanging over her hands and the dress came up to her feet. Her honey colored eyes were blazing with fire and if looks could kill, I would have been dead 10 seconds ago.

"Didn't you hear me? I said: what do you think you're doing?!" She putted her hands on her hips and glared at me. I woke up from my daze and said the first thing that came up:

"Where are you talking about?"

"Where am I talking about?! About you being here! Nobody enters this graveyard without my permission!!"

I stared at her wide eyed and with a dropped jaw: this was the last thing I expected to meet. _Where is the zombie? Where is the angry corps? Where is this girl talking about? AND WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?_

I regained my posture a bit and raised my brow.

"And who do you think you are?" I replied coolly.

The little girl snorted and pointed at me. "I'm the angel of the dead and protector of this graveyard. And since you are disturbing the peace of the people here, I command you to leave before I let you feel their wrath."

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**Disclaimer: I do not own Shugo Chara or the characters: My bunny can eat me if I do. ("Norg: dinner!")**

**A/N: Spotted any grammar mistakes? Feel free to say and I will fix it ASAP. How was that as the first chapter? Poor Ikuto: so alone, so confused, so sad...and that suddenly this girl appears! What in the world is she doing here, and is she really an angel? If you want to know, leave your review and I will update the next chapter as soon as I can! Hope you all enjoyed the first chapter, bye!**

**~ Artemis  
**


	2. Chapter 2

_**In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness. A big black void, where nothing moved and nothing happened. Nothing was born, nothing died, time didn't pass. Everything waited with the darkness at that one moment, the great change, where everything, suddenly, would become completly different. But after countless centuries where no such change took place, the darkness became so sad and desperate that he began to cry. The glittering tears rolled down his cheeks, fell on the ground and shone their light on his surprised face.**_

_**And so, light was born out of darkness.**_

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"_And who do you think you are?" I replied coolly._

_The little girl snorted and pointed at me. "I'm the angel of the dead and protector of this graveyard. And since you are disturbing the peace of the people here, I command you to leave before I let you feel their wrath." _

Chapter 2: Meeting Each Other

Silence. Only the sound of the howling wind and the rustling threes could be heared. It had stopped snowing and the ice crystals lay spread out as a white blanket before the two of us. I looked down to the little pink haired girl and she was starring up at me, still standing in that determined pose like she was going to call upon the dead in any minute.

Only one thought crossed my mind: No. Way.

This couldn't be real. No way in the world that this was still real. It all started to become unreal when I found this graveyard anyway. I wandered around in the city searching for a place where there wasn't any tragedy and what do I find? Thousands of corps, an old church, a whole bunch of broken statues and a little kid claiming to be an angel.

There was only one word for this: a dream. That was the only explanation for this situation. Within any minutes I would wake up and find a crying Utau next to my bed and a whole lot of people who all wanted to talk about my father…

"Hey!" An angry voice woke me from my thoughts. The little girl was still standing in front of me. She had placed her hands on her hips and she impatiently tapped her foot on the ground. "Didn't you hear what I just said? I'm the angel of the dead and if you don't leave immediately than I will let you fe-"

"I heard what you said!" I interrupted her. "I just don't believe you!"

"What?" Now her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, looking with wide eyes at the strange thing before her. She hold this pose for a few seconds and then her golden coloured eyes returned to their blazing look. "What did you say?"

"I said that I'm not believing you. There is no way in the world that you are an angel." I said.

"Yes I am!" She responded angry.

"No you aren't."

"Yes I am!"

"No you aren't."

"Yes I am!"

"No you are not!"

"Prove it then!"

"No you ar-wait what?"

The girl crossed her arms and gave me a stern look. "Prove that I'm not an angel."

I gaped at her. This girl was crazy. Even worse than Utua. She couldn't really expect me to tell her that she wasn't a angel when she was…well, not? I didn't really know what the girl was on the other hand (not a normal human at least), but an angel? No way.

I found my normal pose back. "Well first of all," I started, "angels have wings." The girl raised her brow but said nothing.

"Secondly," I continued, "angels have haloes. Plus they come from heaven and mostly carry around a harp or something like an instrument. And the most important thing: angels, always, _always_, wear white clothes." I smirked as my gaze rested on her long black dress. The girl's face grew red and she puffed her cheeks in a very child-like way.

"That doesn't prove anything!" she responded stubbornly.

My smirk didn't disappear. "It doesn't?" I retorted. "I think it does. It explains that I'm right and you are wrong."

"Nu uh!" the girl said, shaking her head furiously. "You are wrong and I am right. You don't know a thing about angels!"

A vein bulged on my forehead. "I know things about angels!" I shouted irritated. "You don't know anything about them yourself!"

The girl clenched her fists and bore her teeth. "Yes I do!" she said through gritted teeth.

"No you don't!"

"Yes I do!"

"Okay! Then you explain how an angel looks like." I shot back, crossing my arms and giving her a challenging look. _Let's see how she is going to solve this._

She let out a small 'hmph', "See, you explained how a _normal_ angel looks like. I however, am the angel of the _dead_. And those looks very different." She sounded like she knew all about them.

"And how do angels of the dead look like then?" I asked her, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

The girl straighten her back and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Like me" she replied proudly. It was like she expected me to look up at her in awe and bow down to her.

"As a six year old in a too long black dress and with untidy pink hair?" I asked grinning.

Her reaction was priceless. Her face turned from a normal colour to one that reminded me of a ripe strawberry and her mouth fell open. She seemed so shocked and was so taken back by my answer that I couldn't contain my laughter. The sound echoed over the empty graveyard. By hearing this the girl recovered from her shock and her anger returned.

"Aaargh!" The girl stamped her feet to the ground and glared at me as if she wanted nothing more than beat me to death (that thought only made me laugh harder). Instead, she pointed her finger at the gate. "There!" she yelled while shaking with anger. "Go and leave this place alone! I have had more than enough of you!"

"So this is also how angels of the dead look like, with heads that resemble a tomato?" I guffawed, holding my sides, hurt from laughing too much.

The girl swelled up from anger and the steam almost came out her ears. "Go away!"

My laughing calmed down but a smile remained on my face. "Fine fine, I go I go. No need to shout kid" I turned my back to the girl and slowly made my way to the iron gate. Without looking back I stuck up my hand and waved. "See ya later angel."

"OUT!" The rusty fence shook from her voice and a startled flock of birds flew loud cawing into the grew-clouded sky.

I snickered. _She sure is an interesting girl. _

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**Disclaimer: Do I look like a part of a popular japanese manga-writing duo? No? Then I don't own SC or the characters.**

**A/N: Spotted any mistakes? Please tell me and I will fix them right away! And that was the second chapter! So how is that, everything clear to you? No? Don't worry, there are more chapters to come.;) So Ikuto has meet the mysterious girl and they sure had an interesting talk...but will he see her again? The next update will be a bit later since next week I have my exams and that means: no writing. But I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, so please leave you review and watch out for the next one!**

**~ Artemis**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Long ago, there lived a beautiful maiden who loved to dance. Every**__**where she was, she danced to her heart's content. But what the maiden loved the most, was that she could dance in her lovely red toe shoes. One day, she made a wish that she could dance forever. Sadly enough, the wrong powers heard the maiden's wish, and she was forced to dance endlessly until she couldn't bear it anymore and had to chop off her feet. But was it the maiden's own fault of doing such a vain wish, or did she just have bad luck? **_

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Chapter 3: The Lost Cause

A gust of wind blew through the garden. Even though it was winter, the sun was shining bright and a few small clouds floated through the air. Sunlight fell through the tasks and shone on the face of a boy, sleeping in the tree. As he opened his eyes, he found himself surrounded by bare branches and he felt a hard bark pushing against his back.

He blinked. Why was he in the tree?

"Ikutoooooo! Where are you? I want to play!"

I growled. Yes, I growled, not that boy. Because you see, that boy in the tree _is_ me. Me, Tsukiyomi Ikuto. 8 years old, left by his father and currently sitting in a tree on an ice-cold day while hiding for his 6 years old sister, who does nothing else that whining, pleading and screaming in a high-pitched voice.

Life was sure good to me.

Underneath me, I heard the cries of a young girl running around in the garden. The sound of her footsteps on the stone path echoed through the empty place and her voice drilled into my head.

"Stop hiding Ikuto! I want to play right now!"

I ignored Utau's screams and folded my hands behind my head. Although it was winter and it was freezing, I still decided to sit in the tree. Everything was better than staying inside. Because staying inside meant: being together with other people.

Ever since I and Utau were told that we couldn't stay at home anymore because of parental reasons (which means: Dad walked away and mom couldn't handle the stress), we were forced to live with friends of my mother and father. Utau didn't like it and began crying that she wanted to stay with mom, and I? Well, what did I have to say about it? I am just an eight year-old boy, nobody listens to me.

So in the end I ended up going with Utau. Don't get me wrong, Utau is my little sister who does nothing else that irritating me all day long. But she is still my sis. And I'm not, I say **not**, going to leave my sister alone. It was already too painful for her- and me, although I wasn't going to admit that -that dad had left us and that mom was now in the hospital, so she couldn't possibly handle the pain of me leaving her as well.

So here we are. One week later. Me and Utau living with my parents friends all day long. They weren't that bad. Of course the first thing the mother said was: "Oh those poor things. All alone, left by their father." Of course every look she gave us was filled with a sense of pity, even if she said she didn't pity us. Of course her attempts of making us feel like home where in vain. But that was to be expected. Everyone looks at us that way now. Me and Utau are now informally known as the 'children-who-were-left-alone-by-their-heartless-father-and-now-had-to-be- pitied.'

"Onni-tan!"

But like I said, that wasn't be the hardest part of living here. The reason why it's so bad living here, the reason why every day is so frustrating, the reason why, apart from Utau chasing me everywhere, I'm sitting in a tree in midwinter, is **him.**

I looked down. A little boy with short blond was standing under the tree looking up to me. He had ruby coloured eyes, wore a light blue winter coat and beside him stood a long-haired blond dog, whose name was Betty and wagged her tail happily and, like her boss, looked at me sitting in the tree.

The name of the boy? Hotori Tadase.

His age? 5 years old.

His dream? Ruling the world and creating world peace.

Wait. Before you immediately think: "what a sweet fella!", let me explain something about this perfect little prince.

Because of that boy, that sweet fella, that perfect little prince that is standing on the ground looking at me, my life here is an hell. There is something about him. Something that ticks me off. Something that made me hate him the first time I saw him. At that moment I didn't know the reason why, but living with him made it clear: Tadase has an atmosphere. An atmosphere of joy and happiness hung around the boy, as a kind of impenetrable aura of perfection where not even the most painful grief could hurt him. Because of that atmosphere, Tadase would never get hurt, never feel pain, never get sad and never have any tragedy in his life.

Because of those reasons, I hated Tadase.

The little boy's eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Onni-tan, why are you in the tree?"

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes and looked down at him. "Well Tadase," I started, "if it isn't clear to you (what could be expected since you are 3 years younger than me), I'm sitting here because I'm hiding from somebody."

Tadase cocked his head to one side. "From who?"

"Well fro-"

"IKUTO!!!"

_Damn, caught. _I quickly looked for a way to escape, but I saw Utau running towards the tree and that meant: no way out. Standing before the tree, she hold still. She pouted her lips and gave me a look that could set the tree on fire. "Ikuto! Where have you been? You promised you would play with me!" she yelled.

_Oh boy, here we go again. _I sighed deeply. "Utau, I never promised something like that" I said annoyed.

"Mou! But I want to play!" she whined. "You are always hiding somewhere when I want to play with you!"

I jumped out of the tree and landed in front of her. Her face was red with anger and she puffed her cheeks in a really childish way. Somehow that look reminded me of someone…where did I see such a face before?

Utau putted her hands on her hips and glared at me. "You're always like this! If dad was here he would have told you to play with me right now!"

"Well if _dad_ was here, _we_ wouldn't be here in the first place." I replied. I felt anger inside my rising like water beginning to boil, but I couldn't stop myself. _If dad was here. _The words lingered in my mind and for some reason made me mad.

Utua and I stood facing each other and we looked at the other furiously. Tadase stood beside, Betty next to him, and watched nervously, as if he wanted to do something but didn't dare. Not that I cared about him, I was too busy looking at Utau and trying to control my anger.

"If dad was here, he would have told you to stop irritating me and leave me alone when I want to!" I said angrily.

"If dad was here he would have said that you shouldn't be so mean to me and stop running away from me all the time!" she screamed.

"Well we will never know that, because if you hadn't noticed, dad has left us!" I yelled.

Tears formed in Utau's eyes and for a short moment I felt a wave of guilt- I hated to make her cry; I hated to make other people cry- but her anger returned fast and she started screaming again.

"You're lying!" she shook her head furiously. "Dad didn't leave; he just went away for some time!"

_She believes those lies?! _"And do you know why he went away Utau?" I yelled, madder than I ever was. "Because he couldn't stand your nagging anymore! He had more enough of your crying and whining and acting like a spoiled child and that's why he went away! He had enough of you Utau!"

I shouldn't have said those words. I went too far. Immediately when they left my mouth I knew I should have kept those words inside. Words are like prisoners: if you don't pay close attention, you let the wrong ones out.

Utau turned pale white and for a second her eyes were filled with an emotion that I did and at the same time didn't want to understand; then they filled themselves with tears. She turned around and ran off in the direction of the house.

"Utau-chan, wait!" Tadase turned around and ran after her. Betty barked and followed him inside. I stood there next to the tree and felt the anger inside me slowly dying out. I unclenched my fists and let my breath escape.

_Why did you say that?_

I didn't mean it, I was just angry at her. She kept whining and commanding me to play with her. I told her to shut up and leave me alone, but she just continued irritating me more; what would you expect me to do?

_But to say that she was the cause of your father leaving…_

Well somebody must have caused it right? Dad wouldn't leave without a reason. I'm sure it was because of Utau's whining, or of people telling me he wasn't any good on the violin (those people made me furious too), or there must be somebody else who had bothered him a great deal, or maybe I said something stupid (I prayed with all my might I didn't), or…or…

_Or is there maybe no reason at all?_

I sighed and looked up. The sun was gone and there were more gray clouds in the sky. It would probably start snowing again. The last snow of a few days ago had already melted away.

Suddenly I saw it for me: rows of rectangular stones, their grey colour faded by the wind. Stone angels looking strictly down at me, their bodies covered with snow. A little girl with pink hair and a black dress, yelling that she was not just an angel, but an angel of the death…

I smirked. _Would I still be able to find that old graveyard? Last time I didn't really look where I was going, but it was somewhere outside town and there aren't that many graveyards here. Would she still wear that long black dress? And would she still claims to be an angel?_

"Let's find out" I muttered and turned my back to the house. I didn't care if the others would wonder where I would be going, or if they didn't want me to leave. I had a meeting with somebody, and a very special one.

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**Disclaimer: Do I think I'm responsible for that horrible ending of the anime?! Well then. **

**A/N: Sorry for not updating so long. I had my exam week, after that I had a poetry night to present at school (which went pretty good), and of course I still had my theaterclass where I have to practice for my solo, so that takes a lot of my spare time. **

**I hope you all liked the chapter..I hate the ending of it though. This chapter is more of a filler to explain to everyone what happened to Utau and Ikuto after their father left and such. Maybe people will be shocked about the fact that Ikuto hates Tadase so much, but I think I explained well enough why he does it. And his opinion on him will change, it will only take some time.**

**Okay, that was chapter 3! I promise you all chapter 4 will come way faster than chapter 3, I'm really excited about the next chapter: Ikuto returns to the graveyard! Will he see the girl back? And will he maybe meet some other people there? If you want to know, leave your review and look out for my next update! See you soon, bye!**

**~Artemis**


	4. Chapter 4

**Happy Easter everyone! Here is chapter 4! Didn't I promise you all that it would be up much faster than chapter 3? Well I kept my promise!...only now I'm dealing with a serious breakdown. I can't stop stressing about this chapter. Don't ask me why, but when I start stressing about something I don't stop easily. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a next character will appear in this chapter, I don't know...**

**Anyway, I want to thank all the readers, reviewers and people who put this story to their favourite story list: you have no idea how happy you all make me with everything you say about it. It's really calming for the nerves^^. Now sit back and please enjoy chapter 4!**

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_**_**Harry supposed that she was beautiful, with her waist-length hair and her floor-length cloak, but she also looked haughty and proud.**_

_**- J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows.**_

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Chapter 4: The Lady in Black

When I arrived at the graveyard, the sky was completely filled with grey clouds. It would probably start snowing again soon. White ice crystals would fall down and land softly on the ground, the bare trees, the dead ground, my body. They would land on them and form a white, thick coat on us, clothing us in white and trying to make the world a little less without colour.

Too bad I don't think white is considered as a colour.

It wasn't of course the white colour that made me hate snow, but the memory that belonged to it: the snow that lay outside on that day, that day when I came home and Utau was crying and all the people standing in our house, saying that dad had left us and that he would never come back, and-

I furiously shook my head. Enough. Enough of those memories. I wasn't here to think about them. I wasn't here to think about anything at all. I was here because I wanted to find someone. Something. Her. I didn't really know if I should believe that strange fairytale idea of her that she was an angel and all, but something about her made me feel like she wasn't completely normal either. Of course she wasn't, seeing as she claimed to protect this graveyard and all that stuff about angels, but you get me.

I pushed against the rusty gate and it opened. The place hadn't changed a bit since my last visit. The same crosses and gravestones, surrounded by weed and standing random in the ground like flowers that suddenly decided to grow without any plan. The same angel statues, some of them without their body parts, but still with that strong and proud aura around them. The same old church with his grey walls and broken windows.

Not the same old girl though.

Maybe it had to do with the fact that I didn't have my violin with me (I left it back home because I didn't want it affected by the upcoming snow), but moments passed and there was no sign of the girl. I walked around for minutes without really knowing where I was going, and after some time I got the idea that I had passed the same graves for the second time.

I hold still and looked around. Everywhere I looked, there were gravestones. Rows and rows grey gravestones lay stretched out before me without any difference between them. The rusty iron fence was out of sight and the church was only a tiny speck in the distance. I didn't recognize this place at all.

I was lost.

Nervous, I bit my lips. Now I wasn't really a person to immediately panic when something goes wrong, but I began to feel a little uncomfortable. Suddenly the whole idea of 'wanting to find that weird girl' seemed not so good anymore. I frowned and scolded myself.

_Oh yeah, really great thinking Ikuto. __Just wandering off like that without paying attention where you were going. What were you thinking! That you would bump into her the moment you arrived? That you knew the way out here? Idiot! If it wasn't for your urge to leave the house and run off to this deserted place just because you wanted to see some weird girl back, you wouldn't be in this situation and-_

"Good afternoon."

I froze. My heart began beating 10 times faster than it did normally and my mind went blank.

It remained silent, but I knew, without a doubt, that the voice had been real. Somebody was standing behind me. Somebody else was with me.

I wasn't alone here.

The voice hadn't sound as the girl's voice. So it had to be somebody that I didn't know. Who could it be? What could it be? Somebody who had followed me to this place? Some unnatural being who was disturbed by me being here and now wanted to punish me for it? _That girl did warn me that if I didn't leave this place alone, she would make me feel the wrath of the dead…_

I swallowed, and turned around, preparing myself to face the angry undead who had come to teach me a lesson. But the person wasn't an undead, nor a visitor to the graveyard.

It wasn't even the girl.

Before me stood a young woman. She wore a long black dress, made of heavy cloth. The dress went from her feet to her neck, with a little white collar on it. Over the dress she wore a long black cloak made from the same material as her dress, so that it was hard to see where the cloak started and ended. Around her neck she had a long necklace, but the biggest part of it was covered by her cloak, so I couldn't see what was attached on it.

She had a gentle face and a cream coloured skin. Her blonde hair was tied up into an elegant bun and a few loose strands fell down her face. The colour of her eyes reminded me of forget-me-nots and cloudless skies. Despite her gloomy and dark clothes, she looked, I had no other words, _beautiful._

She smiled and I felt my heart skip a beat. "Hello young man" she kindly said. "Did I surprise you?" Her voice sounded like the soft tinkling of silver bells.

I felt a faint blush creep up to my cheeks and quickly tried to find my voice back. "N-no madam. Not at all." _Did I stutter just now? _

The woman sighed in relief. "Thank God, I was afraid I had startled you."

"Oh no, absolutely not!" I replied fast. "I was just thinking about something and I didn't hear you coming, so it was my mistake mostly for not paying attention."

The woman gave me a reassuring smile. "Well it's good to know that you weren't scared." There fell a silence. Then, a small frown appeared on the woman's forehead and she looked at me as if she was pondering about something. "If I may ask, what is such a nice young man as you doing here in a place like this?"

"Well you see madam, I was…well, I was, kinda…looking for somebody." I explained.

She raised her brows. "Really? And is the person you're looking for dead or alive?"

That was a hard question to answer. "Uhm…alive, I think. The last time I saw her she seemed very much like it."

The woman's face brightened. "Oh, your companion is a young lady? May I ask what she looks like, maybe I've seen her." She smiled and looked to the graves surrounding us. "I come here a lot you see, so there could be a chance that I have seen the girl you are looking for."

I opened my mouth to answer her, but a voice in my head stopped me. What was I doing here, telling all this to a stranger? I just met this lady, and within seconds I'm answering every question she asked me. I didn't even know her name!

"Young man?"

I woke up from my thoughts and stared back at her. "Oh, I'm sorry. Well I met her only once, but I remember she has pink hair and some sort of yellow coloured eyes, like the colour of honey mixed with gold. And she wore a long black dress and..that's what I know of her."

Her eyes widened and she smiled brightly. "I think I know the young lady you're searching for."

"You do?" I asked surprised.

"Yes, I do indeed." She gestured to the path before us. "Do you want me to you to her? She is a little way over there, but if you don't know the way here, you can easily get lost."

The voices in my head began to shout warnings again, but I ignored them. For some reason all the warnings didn't disturb me. I felt completely at ease with this lady (even though she made sure that I now had a speech problem), and her aura felt, instead of the angels, calm and comforting. Even if I didn't know anything about her, I _knew_ I could trust her.

"Yes, that would be very kind of you ma'am" I said. She smiled and walked away, me trailing behind her. During the walk we both were silent. I shot a glance at her. _How old would she be? 22, 23 maybe? She doesn't seem like some teenage girl, but she also doesn't look like a older woman. And what did she mean by 'I come here a lot'? Is someone buried here that she knows?_

The woman suddenly stopped and pointed forward. "I believe that that is the young lady fitting to your description." I looked the way she pointed and saw a small girl standing next to a old gravestone, her pink hair hanging loose on her back and still dressed in that long black dress. She looked up and saw me standing there with the woman. Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened. I smirked and raised my hand.

"Yo."

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X

I can't believe he is back! After that last time I thought I had made it clear that I didn't want to see him ever again, and now he is standing here like nothing ever happened! And he is with Anna! Anna! How in the world did those two meet? Really, after he is gone I'm going to have a word with her about letting other people wander around here…

He stood there with that stupid smile on his face like he had done nothing wrong. He raised his hand and said: "Yo." _Of all the things he could say, he says "yo". Not only he is the most irritating creature ever, he also doesn't have any manners. _

I glared at Anna. "Anna, can you explain what this infidel is doing in a place like this?"

Anna looked shocked. "Infidel? This boy? Really my dear, the last thing this polite young man is, is an unbeliever. That is not kind of you to say, when he came all the way from home in this cold weather to see you."

"Well he can go all the way _back_ to home because I don't want him here." I hissed.

The boy faked a hurt expression. "Aww angel, don't be so mean. We had so much fun the last time we met."

I was possitive my face started to get her tomato red colour, but I didn't care. "Fun? You called that fun? You not believing that I was an angel, making fun of me and laughing at me? I don't really call that fun, _infidel_."

"Come on angel, I didn't mean it that way."

"Yeah sure. You laughed because you meant it in a kind way." I snorted. "Go irritate somebody else with your stories of 'I wanted to see you.' We don't want you here."

"But my dear girl," Anna joined in. "I recall you said yesterday to me that you thought this place was so boring because you had no one to play with. Why don't you try to have some fun with this nice boy? Play a game with him or something like that. Maybe that way you won't be so bored anymore."

I'm sure that, on another time and with another person to play with, I would have considered Anna's advice, but now it only made me want to yell at her for not holding her mouth shut when I wanted that.

The boy smiled that smile of his, that one that made him look like the Cheshire Cat (and gave me the feeling to punch him on his nose), grabbed my hand and dragged me away. "You heard the lady. Let's go and have some fun together angel." My mouth fell open in shock and I looked at Anna, searching for any kind of help. _She couldn't agree with this boy's actions, right?_

"Have fun you two." She smiled and waved us goodbye.

I grumbled and closed my mouth. No matter how long I already live with Anna, I can not get used to her carefree way of acting sometimes.

Meanwhile, that boy was still dragging me around. He looked over his shoulder and grinned. "You know, if you keep grumbling like that people will consider you like an old lady."

My face turned red again. "Old lady?" I yelled mad. "You are older than me, people should consider you like an old man, not me! And can you stop dragging me around!" I tried to pull myself loose and the boy let go of my hand. We were now far away from the place where Anna was and, once again, we were surrounded by endless rows of graves.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and smirked. "So angel, any ideas how we can have some fun? Of course you can try again to convince me that you're an angel, but than we would be here until tomorrow."

That did it. My blood began to boil and I opened my mouth to yell him deaf, but suddenly I got a marvellous idea. This boy said that we wanted the two of us to have fun. Only, he didn't say _which_ one of us had to have fun. I grinned. _If this boy wants to have fun, he can get it._

I calmed down a bit and took a deep breath. "Alright, alright, I get it. You came all the way here to have some fun and the only thing I do is yell at you. I mean, you wanted fun right? Let's go and have some. I have a great idea for a game we two can play."

The boy's smile faded and he stared at me suspiciously. "What kind of game?"

I grinned. "A really good one, it's my favourite game to play. It's called: Guess the Dead."

"WHAT?"

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Shugo Chara, nor the characters, only my own characters. For the rest, there is Mastercard. **

**A/N: IT'S TIME TO DUEL! (now I sound like Yami from Yu-Gi-Oh -_-'). But it's time for a game! A very amusing game for sure, I promise you that. If Ikuto will agree with me you have to see in the next chapter.;)**

**If I made any spelling mistakes, please feel free to say so. And I really mean, say so, because next week I will have my Anglia exam, which will test if I'm good in english writing and grammar, so if I have made mistakes, tell me, so I know I have to practice more. Because of that exam, chapter 5 will take a little more time to be up online as chapter 4, but please be patient with me.**

**Now if you all would please push that lovely orange speaking ballon (I prefered the green button) and make this writer a little less stressed about if her story is good or not, than thank you all very much. Hope you all enjoyed chapter 4, bye!**

**~ Artemis**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Who am I?  
Can I conceal myself for evermore?  
Pretend I'm not the man I was before?  
And must my name until I die  
Be no more than an alibi?  
**__**Must I lie?**_

_**How can I ever face my fellow men?  
How can I ever face myself again?**_

_**[..]**_

_**Who am I?**_

_**- Jean Vanjean, Les Miserables**_

* * *

Chapter 5: Guess The Dead

"But what do you want to-?"

"Later!" she said without looking over her shoulder. "We first have to find a good place." The girl had grabbed my elbow and was currently dragging me around the graveyard. After she told me that she and I were going to play a game called: 'Guess the Dead', she grabbed a hold of me and pulled me with her. It was like I did with her first to get away from the forget-me-not girl, and now we switched positions, it was me being dragged around against my will.

'_Guess the Dead'? What in the world does she means by that? She doesn't really means that she really wants to..she isn'__t going to show me…real corps? _I shivered uncontrollably and looked at the girl again. Her pink hair swayed around and while we walked, she was looking around like she searched for something. After a while we stopped. We were in a deserted area of the cemetery. The old church was nowhere in sight, and our only companions were groups of gravestones, all standing next to each other in endless rows, looking just like the stone placed next to them.

The girl looked around and nodded happily. "There. This is a perfect place to play."

I raised my brows in confusion (_this here? The perfect place to play?_), but said nothing and looked at her. "Okay, you finally picked your playground. Can you now please explain what kind of dumb game we're going to play?"

The honey colour in her eyes turned ochre. "It's not a dumb game!" she exclaimed. "I created it all by myself!"

"Well that explains the crappy name.." I muttered.

"Hey!" She clenched her fists and glared, clearly pissed. "It's not a crappy name and it's not a dumb game! It's really fun to play."

I sighed heavily and shook my head. This was getting nowhere. This girl was just as stubborn as Utau when she wanted to play with me: there was no way to bring her on other thoughts.

I saw her looking at me and gave in. "Fine, we will play your game." The girl's eyes widened and her expression changed completely. "Really? You want to play it?"

I shrugged. "Sure. I have nothing better to do."

Her face brightened and a big smile appeared on it. "Yay!" she yelled happily and started jumping up and down, shaking her arms wildly and cheering. "He wants to play, he wants to play!" She looked like a bouncing ball that couldn't stop bouncing. I sweatdropped: I had never seen a girl getting so happy after I agreed to play with her; not even Utau.

As the girl continued to jump up and down and cheer "he wants to play!", I stated: "Maybe you have to explain the rules first before we can actually _start_ to play."

The girl froze and stopped jumping, eyes wide in realization. "Oh yeah, the rules! I forgot!"

"Maybe because you were too busy with jumping," I muttered, but the girl paid no attention to my words and started talking:

"Okay, it's really simple. One of us chooses a grave. It can be a cross, a gravestone, a tomb, a statue: anything. The other gets one minute to investigate the grave and find as much as information as he can find. After one minute he has to tell the other what kind of person is buried under the grave. Easy right?"

For the second time that day, I got into a state of total shock.

She started talking again like she didn't notice my dumbfounded expression. "It's really fun! In the beginning it's a bit hard, but once you get into it it really-"

"It's crazy!" Somehow my soul returned to earth and with it, my voice. "How in the world is that a game?"

"It is!" she replied, pouting her lips. "I played it many times before with Anna and she enjoyed it very much, she said."

"Than you're both out of your mind. That game of yours can not be a game."

The girl crossed her arms and gave me a challenging look. "And why not?"

"Because…" I searched for words. "..Because you can't win it! Every game has to have a way so you can win, but yours doesn't have one." I said, trying to sound as convincingly as possible.

She shook her head and waved my argument away. "Of course you can win the game dummy. Who would create a game that you can't win? Let me show you: choose a grave."

My first thought was to simply ignore the order she gave me (_she called me dummy!)_, but grumbling about stupid games I turned around and looked at the tombstones before me. There was absolutely no difference between them. Just a couple of grey stones standing next to each other with dead people lying underneath it. I randomly picked one. "That one," I pointed.

She knelt before the stone and looked at me patiently. "Begin with counting and tell me when you're done, okay?"

I stared at her for a moment, debating if to do what she said or go away. What would come if we played this? Clearly this was just some child's game without good rules and competition. On the other hand, the way she reacted when I told her that I wanted to play with her, showed that she really wanted me to play with her, even if yelled constantly at me…

I sighed and started. "One, two, three, four…" As I kept counting, I watched while she 'investigated the grave.' She stood up and walked a few times around it, touched the stone and knocked on it, perking her ears for the sound that the old stone made. Then she looked to the text that was written on the grave and tried to read it. There wasn't really a text anymore, the wind had faded everything out expect for some letters and unfinished words. Still she looked at them as like the most important message was written there.

After a while she glanced at me. "Are you done counting?"

"Um.. fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty! Okay time's up!" _How stupid, I totally forgot to count. _She smiled and came back. I put my hands in my pockets and smirked. "Okay, now tell me angel, what kind of dead is lying there?" _What is she going to tell? _I wondered._ Hmm… I bet she will just quickly make something up._

"Here lies Marcus Andre Scott. He became 63 years old and when he died, he left his son and wife behind. She didn't really love him thought, so I except that he and she were forced to marry. He had 2 kids, a boy and a girl, but the girl died when she was 7. The father acted like he didn't care, but inside it made him very sad, because she reminded him of his mother. Therefore, he stayed bitter for his whole life when he worked as a bank director, but when he turned 60, his bank went bankrupt. That was a great shock for him because he trusted businesses more than people. Fried potatoes were his favourite meal, and on 8 July 1932***** he died because one of them got stuck in his throat."

During her speech, my eyes turned as round as coins and my mouth opened so wide I had the feeling it touched the ground. After she was finished, it stayed silent. Then I softly whispered: "How…how...how do you know all those things?" The pink haired girl looked me straight in the eyes. "I just know." She said with a strange smile. I kept silent and stared at her, trying to find a answer to this whole situation. _What is she?_ I thought confused. _How did she know about that guy that was lying there?_

"So, did I guess the dead right?" she asked it in a way like she had just asked me what time it was.

"Uh, yeah…yeah you won", I answered. "But how did you know-?"

"Oh great! 1 point for me!" She cheered and punched her fist into the air. She then turned her attention back at me. "Okay, now it's your turn.

"Me?" I asked her astonished. "You want me to guess what kind of dead persons are lying here?"

She nodded. "You just got to do it, than you will see how it works. Let's see, I choose…" she looked around. "That one!" She pointed to a little, white cross, that was standing away from the other crosses. With no idea how to escape from this place anymore, I slowly sat down before the cross. She smiled happily. "Are you ready?"

I was everything but not, but nodded. The girl began counting. While she was busy, I stared at the cross and I tried to think of something.

_She isn'__t really expecting me to…_

_Oh yes she does._

_What! No! You got to be kidding me! I can't do that! How am I supposed what kind of…__**dead**__ is lying here?_

_Keep it cool boy._

_Keep it cool? I have to tell her in less than 10 seconds who lies underneath this cross and you tell me that I have to keep it cool? I should panic right now!_

"Time's up!" she yelled. "Tell time!"

_WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?_

_Make something up!_

Finally, a thought that could help me. As she came towards me, my mind was quickly fixing a story that could sound true, and when she stood before me, I smirked. "So, did you guess the dead?" she asked curious. "Yes, I think I totally get how your little game works."

"Really?" her eyes sparkled. "Tell me tell me! Who lies here?"

"Here lies Yamamoto Lin, a elder woman who died at the age of 81. She was married with on older man named Akio, but he died 4 years before her. Because of his lose, and the fact that she didn't have any children, she became very sad and didn't came out of her house. Also, her favourite flower was a lily, and-

She shut me off. Her happy expression had been replaced by a disagreeing frown. "Okay stop it. You're clearly lying."

Insulted, I crossed my arms. "Oh yeah, how do you know?"

She sighed deeply and rolled her eyes. "Duh, that's totally obvious. You're talking like you don't have any idea how to play this game."

"Of course I don't have any idea!" I cried out. "And do you know why? Because there is simply no way to play this game! You first stare for a while at a grave, make up a whole weird story about some guy named Andre that lies there and died because of a freaking potato that got stuck in his throat, and when I do the same, you say that I'm lying and that **I** don't have any idea how to play this? Just face it already: your game is not a game but just a bunch of lies!"

Immediately after I was finished, guilt came up. I did it again: I went too far. Just like with Utau._ Now she was going to cry and scream at me just like her, I know it. _I mentally scoled myself. _Why can't you stop yourself from going mad like that?_ She opened her mouth to speak and I branched myself for her upcoming cries of anger and sadness.

"It's not that hard," she smiled. "Here, I will show you."

She grabbed my hand and guided me to her gravestone. I blinked and tried to say something: but nothing came. Instead, I stared at my hand that was untwined with hers. I don't often hold hands with girls –except Utau- but her hand and grip was different than my sister's. Utua's hands are a little smaller than mine and smooth and soft; but she always squeezes the blood out of my hand with her grip. The girl's hand were a lot smaller than mine and I could feel hard skin on it, like she had done many difficult things with them. However, her grip was far more gentler than Utau's has ever been. This whole comparison took place in the short time that the girl and I were holding hands, and it ended when she and I knelt down before the grey stone, when she let go of my hand.

"Listen," she said. "There are a lot of things about a grave that can give you information about the dead that lies underneath it. First of all, there is the shape. The rule is: how straighter the form of the grave, how younger it is. As a grave is older, the shape has been changed by the wind, weeds, rain and simply: time. The second thing, there are the plants. Not only the weeds, but plants that are planted or standing next to the grave, are a sign that the dead meant a lot for other people. You're not planting flowers for somebody you don't love right?" She looked at me. "Are you getting it?"

I thought hard. To me it sounded like nonsense, but in the way she told me everything, it kinda made sense. "A little," I answered slowly. "Are there more things that can help me?"

"Yes of course! There is the place of the grave: if the grave is lying in the middle, than it means that the grave was the first one to be build, and that all the others were build later. Moreover, there is the type of grave. You have little and cheap crosses, but expensive marble family graves too. Then there are the tricky things: the 'homeless graves', or the graves without an stone on than. Those aren't easy to find, and the people that lie in the there were the poorest of all."

"And what about the inscription on the grave?" I asked. How more she was telling me, the more the things sounded logic.

"The inscription," she said, shaking her finger like my schoolteacher, "the inscription is maybe the most important sign of all. You can have two options: or the inscription is still readable, or it isn't. When it isn't, you're done quickly, because that means that the grave is just so old than finding specific information about the dead is almost impossible. But when the text on the grave _is_ readable," the girl grinned. "Than the real investigation get's started."

Fascinated, I listened to the little pinky while she started to hold a whole speech about 'the secrets behind the grave's inscription.' She told me everything: that it didn't matter how _much_ words were used, but what _kind_ of words were chosen to be used. From those words you could exactly see what the family of the dead person thought of him. If the inscription started with 'here lies, my dearly beloved…', but if after that not much personal text was written on the grave, than you could say that the relatives choose a very normal kind of inscription for the grave. That could mean for example that the relatives of the dead didn't feel that much for the dead as they said they had, or that they didn't know what to put on the grave. She went on and on about it.

"Wow," I said when she was done explaining. "Have you found all those things out all by yourself?"

"Yep, it was all me." The girl nodded proud. "It took a while, but now I'm the best 'Guess The Dead' player in the whole world."

I smirked at her statement. _A challenge. _"Do you mind showing that?" She got the hint and grinned. "You're on."

And that's how I ended up that afternoon investigating old stones graves at a deserted cemetery with a little pink haired girl. We kept looking around for other challenges, for graves that we thought the other would never be able to guess. I felt myself growing impatient while I had to count, wanting to hear what kind of story the pinky would link to this grave. In the short time that I had to investigate, I tried to find as much information as I could, keeping all the clues the girl told me in my mind. _The shape, the plants, the place, the type of grave, and…the inscription! It's easy!_

And you know what?

I really learned something that afternoon.

I learned to pay more attention to the graves. I started to see the differences between ones that looked the same. I ran my hands over them like I stroke them, gently like you would pet a kitten. I looked at the text on the graves like the dead's life was written on them. When I sat before them, I didn't think about a dead skeleton, but about a person that had been walking around here on earth, breathing and walking, enjoying the sun and the green on the threes, the other people around him. The dead came alive in some way.

I felt the tension inside my body go away.

After an certain amount of time (I lost completely track of it), the girl and I found ourselves both looking at a tombstone again. We were both hugging our knees and the girl slightly leaned forward, so that her nose almost touched her cold stone. After a couple of minutes I decided to break the silence.

"Angel?"

"Yes, what is it, Infidel?"

"Why have we been looking to this grave for so long?"

I heard her sigh while I kept staring at the grave. "Because this grave is harder than the others."

I looked at her confused. "Harder? Even for you?"

She nodded. "Yes. I mean, you can see that there is text on this one, so even you would be able to tell something about it. But…" she chewed on her bottom lip. "I can't help but feel that there is something not right with it. Like we shouldn't trust the text."

"Of course we can't trust the text completely." I stated. "You said yourself that the relatives put the text on the grave, and that they always want to put positive words on it, even if the person was a jerk. So therefore you shouldn't always trust the text."

"Wow, you really taught him well," a familiar voice answered. The girl and I looked up and I saw the young lady from before standing behind us. She smiled and her bright blue eyes sparkled. "So, I see that you have learned your new friend your favourite game, my dear. Did you enjoy playing it young man?"

I blushed slightly. "Yes ma'am. I enjoyed it very much." I replied.

"Oh Anna!" The girl ran towards the lady and threw her arms around her. "It was so much fun! We first started to play and infidel was really horrible at it, but then I told him everything about the graves, and now he finally understands how it works! Isn't that a miracle?"

I frowned. "It's not that big of a miracle." I said offended. "If you know where to look and how to read the text, you can read those dead like an open book."

The lady nodded approvingly. "Yes, it's true: If you know how books are written, it's easier to predict the plot. However, even if you think you know the plot so well, some writers can be awfully misleading. You can never know when they are going to use their joker."

Me and the girl exchanged looks and the lady saw our confusion. She laughed. "Tell me children: did one of you ever think of the possibility that maybe the dead **himself** could have written his grave's inscription?" My face paled and my eyes widened. The girl only raised her brows. "The..dead himself?" I stuttered frightened.

The woman nodded and gazed at the thousands of tombs spread before us. "Once, I read a story***** about a man who lost his wife, who he loved very dearly. One night, he missed her so much, he went to the cemetery where she is buried to spent a night next to her grave. That night, at twelve o'clock, the man heard a scary sound. He looked around, and suddenly, without warning, all the dead came out of their graves. They erased the words that their relatives put on their graves, and wrote down the truth about themselves on it. The man got curious about what his wife would have written on her grave, and when he found hers, there stood: 'One day she went out to betray her husband, she came back cold from the rain, and then she died.' The day after, the man was found dead next to his wife's grave."

It stayed silent as the lady gave us time to let her story sink in. Then, suddenly, she seemed to remember something, because she gasped and clasped her hand over her mouth. "Oh my dear lord, what a horrible mistake I made!"

"What do you mean Anna?" the girl asked bewildered. The lady swallowed and looked at me apologizing. "I'm so very sorry young man, but I never introduced myself!" I wanted to say that I didn't mind that, but she raised her hand. "No no, I will speak first. My name is Maria Anna Elizabeth Black."

"My name is Tsukiyomi Ikuto, Miss Black." I told her politely. For a moment I thought I saw a hint of confusion in her eyes, but then her gaze softened. "Oh yes, you always say your surname first, I always forget. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ikuto. And please, call me Anna."

"It's nice to meet you too Anna," I replied back with a slight bow. She curtsied back and then glanced at the pink haired girl. She looked back at Anna. "What?" Anna nodded at me and the girl sighed in annoyance. "Fine, I tell him." She stepped forward and put her hands on her hips. "My name is Angel, and for now, that will be it."

I heard Anna mutter something that sounded like "that wasn't really what I was referring too…", but I laughed. "Is that really your name or are you just making something up?"

"Of course it's not my real name," she replied irritated. "But since I don't want to tell you it, and you keep calling me Angel, we will stick with that name as long as I want it."

"As long as you call me Ikuto instead of infidel, I'm okay with it."

Angel snorted. "We will see about that."

Anna laughed at Angel's determined face and then stared back at me. "Now you two, I think it's time for you to end your game. It will be dark soon, so I suggest that you go home Ikuto. There will plenty of enough time for you to play when you return."

Angel's golden eyes were full of surprise as she looked at me. "Are you really going to come back?" she asked. I glanced at her and winked. "I think you'll just have to guess that Angel."

She growled and threw her hands up in frustation. "Oh, just go away already!" I chuckled and, after saying goodbye to Anna, I left the two girls standing there. At the end of the path, I turned around and waved. Angel was still frowning and didn't even raise her hand, but Anna waved back with a mysterious smile lingering on her face.

After I closed the iron gate behind me, a black crow loudly cawed and flew up. I looked up. Anna had been right: the sky was filling itself quickly with black clouds and a cold wind started to blow: the winternight would soon arrive. When I wanted to take my leave, I thought I heard somebody call out to me, so soft that I almost didn't hear it.

"Please come back again…"

* * *

**Disclaimer: Who am I? Well, at least I'm someone who doesn't own SC or the characters from it. For the rest, I have no idea...**

**Explanation of the *-words:**

**- 8 July 1932: In 1929 was the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. The crash began a 10-year economic slump that affected all the Western industrialized countries. As you can see, when Andre was 60, his bank went bankrupt, so you understand the main reason why. 8 July 1932 was the day when the prices reached their lowest level of the 20th century. Only after 1954, those prices were at the same level as they were before the crash in 1929.**

**- The story of Anna: Anna's story is the story: 'La Morte', written by Guy de Maupassant. The story is from his book 'Contes fantastiques', and the story was written in 1887. La Morte means: The Dead Woman. Guy de Maupassant was known for the scary and gloomy atmosphere in his stories, this all due to his experiences during the war in 1870, his weak health and the fact that he had syfilis (which affected his brains and his moods). The way Anna tells the story is exactly how the story goes for real.**

**A/N: Here I am again! Ya all missed me? Sorry for the long wait for chapter 5, but expect from the biggest distraction in the world (real life), a lot of things happened in my real life that aren't really normal, and I had to find a way to deal with it all, which was hard and took a lot of my free time. To make that up to you, I made chapter 5 nice and long^^. Sad enough you all have to wait a long time again for the next chapter, because I'm in my last weeks of school and for the next 2 weeks I'll be having my exams and tests. So that means: STUDY!**

**Well I hope you all enjoyed chapter 5, so please leave your review. Critics, flames, advice or compliments are always welcome, and if you found a grammar mistake, please let me know. Speak you all soon, bye!**

**~ Artemis**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Thoughts of death  
Crowd over my happiness  
Like dark clouds  
Over the silver sickle of the moon**_

_**- Thoughts of Death**_

_**Sterling A. Brown**_

* * *

Chapter 6: Thoughts of Angel 

That night I opened the window in my room and looked to the sky. It was midnight, so everyone was already asleep. The window made a creepy sound when I opened it, like when someone goes with his fingernail over a blackboard. It reminded me of the rusty fence of the graveyard.

I gazed to the world outside. It was all dark now. A little moon sickle could be seen, embraced by dark clouds, like a young girl dressed in a pale white nightgown sleeping in a bed with black linen. Light from the streets crept into the garden, casting shadows over the plants, flowers and other objects, changing their original forms into something different. Something dark. Something unknown. It frightened me, but at the same time I couldn't stop looking at it.

But my thoughts weren't focused on them.

Too many things had happened to me today. Too many things that made it impossible for me to concentrate on the strange shadows of the garden. The things of today were even ten-no, maybe even a hundred- times weirder that those shadows. And to imagine that it all started today with me sitting in a tree and getting mad at Utau. And where did I end? Making stories up about people who passed away, together with an 'angel' with a way too big imagination in a place packed with corps.

Most people would call it an unusual day activity. I called it fun.

However, after that all the fun and the laughter was gone and the dark had returned, my confusion and questions did too. There were just so many things that I didn't get. So many things I didn't understand. The graveyard itself, for example. How long was it already there? Why did it look so forgotten and empty? And even if it was empty, why were there still so many graves?

And Anna. She was…how should I call it…unbelievable. I mean, she was nice and sweet and patient and she was able to cope with strange girls in black dresses (seeing as she wore one herself), but apart from all those facts, there was one tiny voice that kept screaming in the back of my mind: HELLO! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? THAT LADY ISN'T NORMAL! But I ignored that voice most of the time. It was too loud and too disturbing to listen to all the time. And always when Anna smiled at me, I found it very hard to listen to that voice.

And on top of all the 'strange and weird things that I didn't get': there was Angel.

Who was she? What was she? What was she doing today when I met her? Why was she at the graveyard every time I meet her? Most little girls I know (and that only meant Utau, but that was good enough) don't play on a cold winter day at a place full with buried dead people. Most little girls I know have blond or brown or black hair, but she had hair just as pink as a piglet. Most little girls I know didn't make up a game about trying to guess a dead, and when others ask how she knows the information, simply answers: I just know.

I don't know many little girls, but she wasn't like anyone of them. And she had the same effect on me like the shadows of the night: I couldn't stop thinking about them, but somewhere they scared the hell out of me.

A small cloud blocked the moon's silver light for a few seconds. The garden grew darker than he was before, and in those growing moments of darkness, I tried to put everything from today out of my mind. But I couldn't. So I sighed, pictured Angel in my mind, and wondered what she was doing now.

* * *

_Nights tend__ to be full with people. _

_They are always filled with people. Crowed with people. Packed with people. Overflowed with people. People walking down the street, people dancing in clubs, people hanging around in restaurants, bars, cafes. People are everywhere, all night long. Filling it with noises, lights, yelling, happiness, laughter, fun. People are filling the night with everything from the day, almost turning the night into the day. How did the night turn into something like this? Why did the people do this to the night?_

_Because they are scared._

_Because, before all the noises, before all the lights, before all the yelling and laughter and happiness and fun, before all that(!), nights were different. __**Very**__ different. Because nights weren't white then. Nights were black._

_And I mean not a little grey. No: Pitch Black. The colour black filled the night so much, the black colour got a new name: Darkness.__ Nights were completely filled with darkness. No noises could be heard. No lights from the streets or from clubs, restaurants or clubs. No laughter or yelling, no happiness was there to find in the night. The night was silent then. Dead silent. And if there was a sound in the night…than that would mostly be the last sound you every heard. The only light, coming from the stars or the moon in the night's sky, could barely light your way. _

_Yes, in that time, night was__ something that people weren't in gladly. People ran away from the night. They fled from the night. They hide from it, in their houses, shelters, holes or any other place where they felt (or thought they were) safe from the night. They hide and slept, because Sleep is the only escape from the dark, silent and mysterious night. In those times, the night was the most dangerous, cruel and deadliest enemy of mankind. _

_And t__his night, was one of those nights._

_Tonight wasn't crowed. Tonight wasn't filled with noises. Yes, tonight was filled with the light from the street, but somehow even that light seemed to be dimmed and weak. Like it knew it was one of those old nights, wherein their light wasn't going to help anybody. Maybe the people felt it too. Because nobody was out tonight. There were no people on the street, walking down the street, dancing in clubs, hanging around in restaurants, bars and cafes. _

_In this night, e__verything was silent. In this night, everything was dark. In this night, no living soul was outside._

_Or maybe, there was__. _

_Because__** if**__, there would be someone outside on this late hour, and if that someone would be wandering around town, and if someone stumbled upon an old rusty fence that surrounded an old area full of old grew stones, with in their middle an white church; if someone should find that place and listen, then that person should be able to hear something. He could first think that it was the sound of the wind in the trees, but if he would listen closely, he should be able to hear two voices speaking to each other in a excited tone, like they were arguing._

_That someone should be able to hear those voices, but in no way he should be able to see two lone figures standing there in the shadow of the white church. He wouldn't been able to make out that one of the figures was smaller compared to the other, and that the smaller figure was moving; while the other figure was be standing still and would be harder to spot. Maybe the fact that their clothes were the same colour as the night, would help them with hiding in the church's shadow, and would make it all the more difficult for the someone to seem them both. _

_No, that someone could not see those two figures in any way. But __**if**__ he could, and __**if**__ he was able to see and hear clearly what they were saying, he would be witness of the following scene…_

* * *

"I do **not** want him to come again!"

"Come on dear, we already discussed this."

A little girl in a black dress (however the colour would be hard to make out) was pacing past the graves, her fists clenched and stamping her feet. Her hair had once been in a ponytail, but had come loose, and hang now on her back. Nearby, an young woman was sitting on a tombstone. This would be to the someone a shocking display, but the woman seemed to care less about her 'chair.' She also seemed to care less about her clearly pissed off companion. The woman on the tomb was dressed in a long black dress and her hair in an elegant bun. She was calmly sitting there while playing with something that was attached to her necklace. It was too dark to see what.

The little girl stopped pacing, put her hands on her hips and glared at the woman on the tombstone. "I don't care what we discussed! The point is that I don't want him to come again, and you keep saying that I'm talking nonsense and-"

"I didn't say that, I only told you that it was useless to complain," the woman replied without looking up. "The boy will return to us and become part of this. That is something I know, that is something you know, that is something we _all_ know." The woman stopped playing with her necklace and looked up at the girl, her blue eyes reflected in the pale light of a silver moon sickle. "It's useless to complain about something that is unable to change."

The little girl didn't seem to agree with that answer. "It _is_ able to change! You always say that if you want something very hard and if you just try hard enough, that everything is possible!"

The older woman sighed. "That doesn't count for things like this," she said, but the girl continued talking like she didn't hear the woman. "Besides, it's not only me who doesn't want him to come. Henry also told me that he didn't want any intruders here, and Icarus said-"

The woman raised her brows. "Icarus _said_? When was the last time Icarus said something? I'm even surprised he hasn't lost that ability yet."

The little girl crossed her arms. "He did say something!" she said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. "It just wasn't..out loud…" The girl trailed off and tried to find the right words to finish her sentence. When she saw the woman roll her eyes, her expression turned angry again.

"Hey! Just because Icarus doesn't look like us, does not makes him less one of us! He is still part of our group, no matter if you all don't believe that he can talk, besides from what he is."

During the little girls speech, the woman's gaze returned to her necklace again. In the moon's light, the thing attached to her necklace seemed round and small. When the girl was finished, the woman shook her head. "My dear girl, no matter how many reasons you give, it's not going to change anything. There is no way of escaping this from happening; if there is anybody who should know that for sure, it is you."

The woman rose from the tomb and gazed down at the girl with a frown, looking proud and stern. "Now my dear, I suggest you stop complaining about the whole event and just accept it. Ikuto will return to us, if you like it or not. Goodnight." She smoothed out her dress and left the girl standing there, frustration and anger building up inside of the little one.

Suddenly, Night's silence was broken by the cries of the little girl. It sounded like a volcano that exploded. She screamed in anger and started jumping up and down, crying out: "But I'm Amu! I'm the Angel of the Dead! I don't want that infidel to come!" She threw her head back and yelled in rage: It's not fair! It's not fair! IT'S NOT FAIR!"

The woman didn't stop during the girl's tantrum, but hearing the last words, she turned around and looked back at the angry girl. "No, but you know what, Amu," and her eyes turned into an ice blue colour. "Sometimes, life isn't."

* * *

**Disclaimer: I own my own life, and there, my owning ends.**

**A/N: Bonjour, Goodday, Guten Tag, Goede Dag dear readers from Fanfic! Even if I have my Anglia exam tomorrow, I'm still posting chapter 6 as an early birthday pressent for me and my readers, because 28th June I'll become 17 years old! Hurray! Happy birthday to myself!^^ So therefore, here is chapter 6 for ya all. I hope you like it: there is a lot of information in this chapter, but you have to know how to read the text to find the information. And if you don't get who the 'figures' are...I suggest you read the other chapters again ;).**

**And here comes the whole riddle again: If you find any grammar mistakes, please let me know. I'm also very interested in the 'Thoughts of my Readers', so critics, flames, compliments and advice are all welcome. Now, if you can, please leave your review and a very good day to you all. I hope you enjoyed chapter 6! Bye!**

**~Artemis**

**Ps. I have a itsy bitsy tiny winy request for you all. When I started this story, I couldn't imagine that I would get so many wonderfull reviews from you all: so thank you very much for them. But since we have reached 26 reviews, I was wondering if you all could be so kind to make 30 of them? I would totally make my day! So if you want to do that for me, thank you so much!**


	7. Chapter 7

_**The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.**_

_**- Stephen King**_

* * *

Chapter 7: New Participant

I stood in the garden and inspected my surroundings. The coast had to be clear if I wanted to take my leave. The garden was empty. The house was not. From where I was standing, I could hear the voice of the little prince happily talking to his mother, who was explaining to him how to bake cookies. Tadase had asked me earlier if I wanted to help too, but I refused to spend more time with the kiddy-king than was needed.

As for the weather: it hadn't changed. It was still winter, there still lay snow and it was still ice cold. And dad was still gone, but I forbid myself to think about him. Alas, everything together meant that I could leave this place easily. Which was exactly what I was going to do. Leave this house and it's_ lovely_ people behind me to visit the graveyard and it's…inhabitants again. People might wonder why I would keep visiting that place, since I didn't understand anything about it or about the people there. But there's a simple answer for that.

Reason for visiting: I have nothing better to do.

As silently and sneaky as I could, I made my way through the garden. I wasn't spotted, and when I reached the garden's gate, I praised myself. I was just a few little steps away from freedom, and nobody noticed me leaving. Now there was nothing standing in my way, absolutely noth-

"Ikuto!"

Okay, maybe one thing.

Utau was standing behind me with her hair in two pigtails and hands on her hips. Her eyes had that look that could make Tadase run crying to his mother. Her foot made a tapping sound on the ground, and the whole atmosphere around her felt like it was loaded with electric energy: sparkling and dangerous. I sighed. It seemed that I wasn't going to leave the house as easy as I had first thought…

"Utau," I started, "what are y-"

"Where are you going?" she interrupted.

"What?"

"You heard me!" she shot back. "I said: where are you going?"

"Who said that I was going anywhere?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Ikuto, I know that you are going somewhere." I softly growled. This wasn't going to work. Time for another tactic.

"It's not your business."

Utau hold her angry pose, but the look in her eyes changed. "I want to come with you."

"You don't even know where I am going!" I replied irritated.

Her angry face now fell and she smiled sweetly. "That doesn't matter: as long as you are there."

I frowned. "I already said: it's none of your business."

Her angry face returned and she was Miss Monster again. "You're going to meet a girl, right?"

"Wha-, where did you get that idea?" I asked, hiding my surprise and discomfort. This conversation was not going the way I wanted.

"Aha!" Utau pointed at me accusingly. "So you're going to meet one!"

"No, I'm not!" I replied irritated.

She had reached her limits. Her eyes began to water and her lips started to quiver, but the blazing look in her eyes didn't disappear. "It's not fair! I'm a lot prettier than all the other girls and still you never want to play with meeeeeeeeee!"

While Utau was busy with wailing and crying her eyes out, I walked past her and grabbed the garden's gate. Before I opened it, I turned around.

"Utau, you're wrong. I'm not going to meet a girl, I'm going to _leave _a girl."

Utau stopped crying and stared at me confused.

"You."

And before her cries started again, I closed the gate behind me and left my sis standing there.

I can't say that I was very happy with what I did, but I needed to get away from that house. I mean, they can't expect me to stay home all day with a wanna-be-king and my little sister. I needed a break, and I knew just the place where I could find that. I was so caught up in my thoughts, that I didn't notice that I was being followed.

By a pair of violet eyes.

* * *

When I arrived at the graveyard today, everything was still the same. The same stones, church, statues, snow that lay on the ground and the fact that the strange girl was nowhere in sight. And it didn't look like Anna would show any minute to guild me the way. I frowned. This was starting to bother me. Why is it so damn hard to find a little girl in a deserted place like this? Because this place is huge. Too. Damn. Huge.

I kicked a stone in frustration and it rolled away, and then, I saw the crow. The bird had been sitting on a cross the whole time, watching me getting frustrated about the fact that I don't know the way here. He turned his head to a side, like it asked himself what was wrong with me.

"And where do you think you're looking at?" I spat back at him. The bird didn't seem to be affected by my anger and kept staring at me curiously, waiting on what I was going to do next.

And honestly, I had no idea. I didn't know where to go or what to do, it was freezing cold and here I was, talking to a black bird on a cross. It was official: this place was not good for my health.

"Kraa," cawed the crow.

"What?" I yelled, pissed off. "Yes, I know I'm looking ridiculous standing here, but that's not my fault! Nobody every told me the way around here."

"Kraa," cawed the crow again, and flew up from the cross. He landed a few meters nearby and stared at me. I furrowed my brows and stared back. The crow gave me a look like he wanted me to understand something. He shook his feathers and gestured with his head to the path before him.

I pointed to myself and carefully asked "You want me…to follow you?"

"Kraa!" The crow answered and flew away to the north direction. I stared at the bird in general confusion and wonder, and then I woke up. "Hey, wait for me!" I called, and ran after him.

After a short time of running (in which I had to try to keep up with the bird and not to trip over the graves), I ended up in front of the old church. To my surprise, Anna was there. _Why is she always here? _She was looking at the doors of the church , and when she heard me arriving, she looked up.

"Ikuto!" she exclaimed happily, "how nice is it to see you again! How did you know where we were?"

"The…bird…lead…me…here…" I said panting. Anna raised her brows and looked up to the crow, who had landed at the top of the church. She smiled and waved at him. "Thank you dear!" The crow cawed and shook his feathers in response.

"Do you know that bird?" I asked.

"Even if I didn't, it's only proper to thank someone after they have helped you, isn't it?" she replied.

I looked up and watched the crow looking around and twisting his head, softly cawing a false tune to himself.

"But it is just a crow." I told her. "It's not a someone, it's a bird: they not really care about manners." Anna shot me a look that parents always give, which means 'you're too young to understand this', and turned to the door. "Angel, are you ready dear? We have a guest."

I stared at the doors, which where, to my amazement, pushed open by the little girl with her pink hair. I felt that my mouth fell open, but I couldn't stop it. Those doors were almost 3 times as long as her and a hundred times heavier, and she opened them like they're were made of clouds!

Angel caught me gapping at her. "Never seen a girl open a door, Infidel?" she asked sarcastically. She carried a bucket filled with water, and several brushes. Now I noticed, Anna had those things with her too. Angel pushed the door behind her, and it closed with a loud smash that made the whole church shudder.

"And what are you doing here?" she asked coldly. "Don't you have anything else to do than to bother us?"

Anna sharply turned to Angel. "Angel, what are you saying? Ikuto came probably all the way from home to see you: this is not really a way to show your gratitude to him."

"Should I show gratitude to him for showing up when we're going to work? " she shot back. "He is only going to stand in our way."

"In what way?" I was getting more and more confused by the minute. First Angel was acting more colder and angry than I have ever seen her before, and now she was talking about me like I was not even standing here.

Angel turned to me and snorted. "Anna and I were going to clean the graves, but since you are here, I'm not sure our plans will continue."

"Oh don't be silly, Angel," Anna told her. "We're not going to postpone our plans just because Ikuto decided to visit us. He can be a great help to us." Anna looked at me. "Do you want to help us, Ikuto?"

"Oh, uhm…" Angel glared at me and I quickly finished my sentence, "..I would love to help you!"

"That's wonderful!" Anna smiled happily.

"Oh yes, _wonderful!,_" Angel said, imitating Anna's cheery voice. "Well Mister Wonderful can go and have a lovely time with you: I'm going to clean the crosses." She picked up her things and walked away. At the end of the path, she called over her shoulder: "Far away from you!"

Anna and I watched Angel leave, and Anna shook her head. "My, My, Angel, are you really that mad at him?" she spoke quietly and her eyes looked sad. I looked to Anna and she saw my confusion.

"Oh don't take it too personally Ikuto," she smiled assuring. "Me and Angel had some sort of…loaded conversation yesterday and I think she's still a little angry about that. It's nothing serious." I slowly nodded, not quit getting the whole topic, but decided to leave it this way.

"So, you want to help me cleaning the graves?"

"Oh, well..yes." I couldn't say no right now, right? I had already agreed on helping, so I followed Anna over the many paths, along the thousands of graves until I totally lost sight of direction and place.

After a while, she stopped. "Here we are then," she spoke and put her things down. I looked up, and then I just noticed the type of grave we were going to clean. "Well, it has been a long time ago since she was cleaned, so we have a lot of work to do!" Anna looked at me for a response, but I could only stare at the grave and try to control my fear.

On the old, marble tombstone lay a woman. Or more, a woman's statue. She lied face down with her arms crossed before her, and her whole body was bend forward like it was broken. Two huge stone wings grew out her back, but they hang low and followed the line of the woman's body, like they were too heavy for her to carry. I couldn't see her face since it was resting in her arms, but I could guess the expression. The whole thing: the angel's broken body, her big but heavy wings and the strong emotion than hang around her made my knees weak and my heart cold. The whole statue portrayed only eternal pain, sadness and guilt, and somehow I couldn't bare to look at it.*

It was so strange, all the other angel statues that I had seen so far on the graveyard all looked proud and strong, even if they missed body parts. They all looked at me like they knew exactly who I was, and that no secret was safe for them. But this one was totally the opposite. The angel looked so sad, so desperate, so…_helpless_. She wasn't crying for the dead lying under her, but for herself, and that made the whole picture even more painful. It was like she had realized she made a horrible mistake, and that whatever she would try, nothing could make up for it. And when she knew that, she just fell down on the ground and wept, endlessly.

"Ikuto?" Anna's worried voice seemed to come from far. "Are you okay, you look so pale?"

"Yes..yes, I'm fine," I softly muttered, not being able to tear my eyes off the statue. "Is this the grave you were talking about?"

Anna nodded. "This is one of the oldest statues here, and since the snow that fell last day, we really need to clean this one today before the snow can do more damage to it. I will clean the statue, do you want to cut all the plants on the stone away and make sure that the inscription is readable again? If the snow melts and turns into water, it can eventually erase the words in the stone, and that would be awful. We can't put this girl into more pain…"

"Yeah..yeah I will do the stone," I said slowly, finally taking my eyes off the statue and focused them on the stone. The whole tombstone was covered in ivy and the inscription could hardly be seen under need all those plants, but in my heart I was overjoyed that I could clean the stone; I didn't think that I could handle cleaning the crying angel.

I grabbed the small garden shears that Anna took with her, knelt to the ground and started to cut the thick stalks of weeds and ivy away. Anna stood next to me, the bucket with water between us, wiped the snow on the angel away, and dried the stone with a piece of cloth. It became silent, the only sounds coming from the garden shears and the rubbing cloth.

During the work, I didn't dare to look at the angel, and continued to frequently cut the weeds on the stone away. I was so caught up in this that when I heard Anna's voice, I almost got a heart attack.

"Io."

I looked up and stared at her. "What?"

"This angel's name," spoke Anna softly, "is Io."

I looked to the inscription on the stone. "How do you know, the inscription says nothing about the name of the angel."

Anna sighed and looked to the angel, who lied broken and beaten on the tombstone. "Her name isn't written in the stone, Ikuto, but in her heart."

I felt a story coming up.

Long, long ago, there was the wife of a mighty king named Io, who had 7 sons and 7 daughters. The queen was arrogant and proud, and claimed that her sons were stronger that the gods, and that her daughters were more beautiful that the goddesses. She even claimed that she herself was just as powerful and unassailable as a goddess, and that the people should worship her instead of the real gods and goddesses. But when the first offers which where made in glory of her, the gods and goddesses punished the prideful queen. They killed her sons and her daughters one by one, and they didn't stop until all her children lay dead at her feet. And the only thing the queen could do while all her children were murdered, was cry. And even after all the killing was over, and the gods turned her into stone, the stone queen kept on shedding tears, as a last sign of her endless despair and sadness.*

"And that's why this angel statue is called Io, the one who always cries." Anna placed her hand on Io's head, and I could only stare at the angel, filled with pity and regret. The queen had been dumb and prideful, but the punishment she got was not one she deserved. Not something that horrible.

Anna knelt down next to me and inspected the stone. "Well, that looks really good Ikuto." A smile lay on her face, but the sadness of Io lay in her eyes. "You did a good job for a first time." I nodded in gratitude, but then I lay my eyes on her necklace.

She always wore it when I saw her, but now I saw for the first time what hang on to it: a big green stone with the size of a small apricot and oval shaped. The green stone was placed in a holder of the same shape, but a little bit bigger, with a small ring on top so that the pendant could hang on to the chain. The chain was silver, just like the holder, which was decorated with a detailed network of little flowers. Everything together, it was a beautiful piece of art, shaped and made by no other than a real artist.* Anna saw me looking at it.

"You like it?" she asked. I nodded, and gazed at her. "May I..?" Anna understood me and placed the pendant in my hand. I carefully examined it, turning it around and inspecting every angle.

"It is beautiful." I said. "It's simple, but elegant. Not too much or too big. And the stone is also…really nice."

"It's really special for me. I got this necklace from someone who meant a lot to me." The look of Io in Anna's eyes didn't leave and spread out to her corners of her mouth, so that even her smile didn't hold any happiness this time. "It's my treasure."

"I see…" I muttered and rubbed with my fingers over the stone. "Just like my violin."

"Your violin?" Anna still looked sad but her eyes held a glint of wonder. I realized then that Anna wasn't there when I first arrived here, and therefore didn't know about my violin.

"I play the violin, or..my dad's violin. It's the only thing that he left behind before he left me and my mother and sister behind." I closed my fingers over the stone and hold onto it like it was a lifeline. "He saw the violin as his treasure, and even if he left me and my family behind, I now see it as mine."

Anna's attempt to show me a real smile were the best so far, but she looked more like Io that ever. And although I will never know for sure, I'm sure I wore the just the same expression. We stood there in silence, both looking at the pendant and thinking about our own treasures, while the air of sadness hang around us like a thick, cold, mist.

It was in those moments, I realized later, that I was the closest to Anna's heart than I would ever be.

* * *

From behind her stone cross, a young pinkette watched the two people talk with each other. Her golden eyes were wide with shock. She saw how the boy touched the pendant of the woman, and that the woman _allowed _the boy to do that. _She lets him! She barley knows who he really is, but she lets him touch it! _The woman and the boy spoke with each other, the boy still with the pendant in his hand. Then, he looked up, and smiled at her, which the woman returned.

The girl lay her eyes on the necklace again, and while she looking at it, a plan was born in her head. The golden colour in her eyes turned amber and a grin spread across her face.

If Anna was going to trust Ikuto more, and if Ikuto was going to grow closer to Anna, than maybe she could finally get what she wanted…

* * *

Far away from young boy's interests and little girl's spying eyes, a black bird was sitting on the frozen winter ground. The black bird was none other than a crow, who is, as you may know, not an unusual visitor for a graveyard. This one was cleaning his feathers using his long, sharp bill, making soft noises in satisfaction.

Suddenly he stopped and looked up. He had heard a sound, nearby. The rusty fence shrieked, opened, and a little girl slowly entered the domain. The girl was nervous. She took little steps, careful and unsure, looking around, like she searched for something. A small voice escaped from her quivering lips.

"Ikuto? Ikuto, where are you..?"

The crow hadn't moved from his spot on the ground, watching the girl with small, black eyes. The girl's eyes were a beautiful violet colour and were filled with determination, but also, with hidden fear. She looked to the scenery before her, deciding which way she wanted to go, and took one of the many paths who lead her into the labyrinth of graves.

The crow hopped up and down, shook his feathers and let out a loud caw. "Kraaaa!"

Then, he spread his wings and flew up into the sky, following the little girl searching for her brother in the snow.

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything, except for my CD of the Mary Poppins Musical. Chim Chim Cheree! **

**Explanation of the *-signs:**

**The story of Io: This story is actually the myth of Niobe. Io's name comes from another girl, who also has her own myth in the Greek Mythology. I just liked Io's name more, so I used it for Niobe's story. Don't sue me for it.**

**The links to Io's statue and the Anna's pendant stand on my profile. Feel free to watch.**

**A/N: Hello, I'm alive again! Sorry for the long wait, but I went on vacantion for 3 weeks, and in those weeks I couldn't update anything. But I got the time to work on this chapter, so hurray for long vacantions! If people want to know, I went for two weeks to the island Terschelling, and the first one how knows where that is gets a virtual cookie!**

**And a new player is added to the game! How will her presence influence the progress of the story? And how will Ikuto's growing trust have an effect on the lives of Angel (Amu) and Anna's lives? And are really all the players in the game playing with fair cards?**

**Any grammar mistakes? Tell me. Any critics, advices, flames or compliments? Please let me know. Any reviews? Always welcome.**

**I hope you all enjoyed** **chapter 7, see you soon! Bye!**

**~ Artemis**


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